Certain cooktop appliances include multi-ring gas burners. Such burners can include a center burner surrounded by one or more concentric burner rings. Certain multi-ring gas burners ignite gaseous fuel, such as propane of natural gas, at one of the burner rings and utilize carryover slots or ducts along the top surface of one of the burner rings to carry flames and ignite gaseous fuel at other burner rings.
Generally, carryover slots suffer from certain problems. For example, flames at the carryover slot can be unsightly due to their height when the gas burner is operating at a high flow rate. In addition, carryover slots are generally machined on a cast or forged component, and the secondary machining process performed after producing the component can be expensive. Further, carryover slots are generally positioned at a top of the gas burner. Thus, the carryover slot can provide an entry point into the gas burner for debris that is difficult to clean or remove.
Carryover ducts also suffer from certain problems. For example, fuel within the carryover duct can burn at an opening of the carryover duct rather than within the duct when a fuel and air mixture within the carryover duct is imbalanced. Thus, flames at one of the burner rings may not be transferred to other burner rings through the carryover duct if the fuel and air mixture within the carryover duct is imbalanced. However, forming a suitable fuel to air ratio within the carryover duct over a wide range of flow rates for the gas burner can be difficult. In addition, carryover ducts generally rely upon fuel collecting at a top of the carryover duct. At a top of the carryover duct, flame quenching is problematic, and copious amounts of fuel may be needed to overcome such quenching. However, large volumes of fuel may limit entrainment of air within the carryover duct such that an undesirably large flame is produced when the fuel within the carryover duct eventually ignites.
Accordingly, a multi-ring gas burner with features for reliably transferring flames between burners of the multi-ring gas burner at a variety of flow rates would be useful.